Author: Kerstin

Ellen M. Harrington has taken over the directorship of the Deutsches Filminstitut in Frankfurt am Main on January 1, 2018. Harrington, who studied Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies, began working for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills in 1993, following positions in non-profit film programming and feature film development. She was Director of Exhibitions and Special Film Events and Founding Director of the Academy’s International Outreach Program. In 2013, with the green lighting of the Academy’s film museum, she became part of the planning team of that large-scale project, as its Director of Exhibitions and Collections. Since 2015, she has been responsible for developing and shaping the museum’s collections.

In November 2016 the European Audiovisual Observatory has carried out a survey among the members of the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes. The objective was to assess the access to the film works in their collections in the context of education and research. 32 ACE members replied to the survey, representing over 1.1million film works.

The study “Access to film works in the collections of Film Heritage Institutions in the context of education and research” was part of a research project supported by the European Commission.” It can be downloaded HERE.

Following the success of the joint FIAF/ACE Workshop “Metadata Management in Film Archives: Putting the Cinematographic Works Standard EN 15907 to use and introducing the new FIAF Cataloguing Manual” (ZEM Potsdam, March 29-30, 2017), it was very clear that most film archives share a set of questions and problems that are worth discussing as a community.
The ACE Workshop traditionally organized in Bologna is the perfect occasion to continue this discussion and to delve deeper into some of the issues:
For many decades, the range of choices was limited: film archives’ databases were all more or less relational databases, simple, basic tools developed painfully for years… Metadata rules were simple, we just followed the FIAF’s Cataloguing Rules. If your archive was big and rich, there was one collection management software available for purchase, used everywhere… But now, all this is gone, leaving film archives with more questions and fewer answers …. What should a management tool for film and non-film collections look like in the 21st century? What should it be able to do? Shouldn’t we, as a community, find a way to create the tools we need?

Date: Tuesday, 27/06/2017, 9:30-12:30h

Venue: MAMbo (Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna), via Don Minzoni, 14

Registration: Attendance is to the workshop is free, but places are limited. Please register HERE

9:30“Extending the FIAF Moving Image Cataloguing Manual and FIAF Glossaries using LoD”
The FIAF Cataloguing and Documentation Commission has set up a Task Force to define and deliver an agenda to augment and extend the FIAF Moving Image Cataloguing Manual with Linked Open Data resources, and to transform the FIAF Glossaries to LoD. What are the objectives and where will the task force go from here?Stephen McConnachie (BFI), presented by Anna Fiaccarini (Cinteca di Bologna) and Bram Biesbrouck (Cinémathèque royale de Belgique) – Presentation (pdf)

10:00“Collection management tools for non-film collections”
How do archives currently store, archive and annotate non-film objects like magazines, pictures, clothing, objects, etc? How is the metadata managed? Is it linked to the film collection(s)? What kind of tools do we need?Anna Fiaccarini (Cineteca di Bologna) – Presentation (pdf)

10:30“Practical introduction to LOD and how to apply it to film archives”
Everybody is talking about LOD, but what is it exactly and how can it be used by Film archives? What’s the big difference with relational databases? What are the advantages of
linking to internal and external ontologies? An example of its application is the CRB new collection management for film and non-film, including long term digital preservation.Bram Biesbrouck and Bruno Mestdagh (Cinémathèque royale de Belgique)

11:00Coffee Break

11:30“A community-based approach, and benefits of sharing knowledge and development. Is this the way to go for our community of film archives?”

For years, archives have been developing solutions to manage their film and non-film collections, each one separately from all colleagues. Shouldn’t we change our approach and combine forces to create tools that are designed for and by the community?Nacho Lahoz Rodrigo (IVAC), Nicola Mazzanti (ACE, CRB) –Presentation (pdf)

12:00Wrap-up

Attendance is to the workshop is free, but places are limited. Please register for the workshop via: https://tinyurl.com/yaskrjvo or send an email to ace@deutsches-filminstitut.de

23 May 2017 – Il Cinema Ritrovato is one of the world’s major festivals of film restoration and definitely one of the major highlights in a cinephile’s world. The 29th edition presents 500 films from 65 archives, newly restored copies of well-known classics, but also rediscovered rare films: in the traditional “Recovered and Restored” section, at evening events at the Piazza Maggiore (don’t miss “Saturday Night Fever” (1977) by John Badham and “Let’s Get Lost”, Bruce Weber’s portrait of Chet Baker), in programmes dedicated to Robert Mitchum, Jean Vigo, Carl Laemmle jr, postwar German director Helmut Käutner and Augusto Genina, one of the most cosmopolitan directors of Italian film history. And there is much more to discover and re-discover. Buena visione! Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, 24 June -2 July 2017.https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/

We are pleased to announce the final programme for the workshop “Metadata Management in Film Archives – Putting the Cinematographic Works Standard EN 15907 to use and introducing the new FIAF Cataloguing Manual”. It will be held at the ZEM in Potsdam, 29-30 March 2017.

discuss new concepts of managing, storing and sharing metadata in film archives, such as linked data and RDF

The workshop addresses individuals responsible for collection management applications in film heritage institutions, cataloguers and filmographers as well as information professionals from related cultural and media heritage communities.

The workshop will take place in three sessions. Applications for presentations should address the following (or other relevant) questions:

Session 1: EN 15907 in practice: Existing applications of the Cinematographic Works Standard in film archives. Experiences, issues, challenges and next steps

What is your experience with the CWS? In which ways do you use it in your work environment? Which issues and challenges have occurred, and how do you deal with them? How do you deal with issues such as the optional parts of the standard, especially the Variant entity?

Session 2: No archive left behind? – The situation in and needs of film archives that have not (yet) applied the CWS

What are the reasons for not, or not yet, introducing the standard in your institution? What is the situation concerning metadata management in your archive, and which challenges do you face? What are your plans concerning metadata management and EN 15907 in the future? In which ways can resources be pooled to achieve progress?

Session 3: New ways of managing, storing and sharing metadata in film archives: Linked Data, RDF and concepts beyond the Relational Database paradigm

Do you have examples of projects and applications using Linked Data concepts with the CWS or film-related information? What are your experiences? What are the challenges and the possibilities for managing and sharing of film-related metadata? What is your vision of future cinematographic metadata aggregation? Do you have concrete plans to go Linked (Open) Data ?

Putting the Cinematographic Works Standard EN 15907 to use and introducing the new FIAF Cataloguing Manual. A joint workshop by the Association des Cinémathèques Europénnes (ACE) and the FIAF Cataloguing and Documentation Commission, 29-30 March 2017, Brandenburgisches Zentrum für Medienwissenschaften (ZEM), Potsdam.

Since its adoption in 2011, the Cinematographic Works Standard EN 15907 (“CWS”) has framed the cataloguing of moving images and the development of a number of collection management applications for film archives. A growing number of film heritage institutions adopt and apply the EN 15907 structure in their software applications. The tag “EN 15907-compliant” has become a selling point for software vendors and developers in addressing the needs of film archives. The standard was realized in union catalogues and aggregation systems, such as filmarchives-online.eu and europeanfilmgateway.eu. More and more, it is becoming key to sharing cinematographic work-related data between institutions.

During the first five years of working with the CWS, practical experiences have been acquired, challenges for its implementation have been discovered, and open questions have, inevitably, popped up. A survey conducted for a presentation at the FIAF Symposium 2013 in Barcelona showed that three film heritage institutions in Europe had finished CWS implementation, and five institutions were about to implement it. Since then, no systematic evidence of CWS implementation in film archives has been gathered. Hence, it is now due time for review, and for discussing the next steps.

EN 15907 is a central reference for the new FIAF Moving Image Cataloguing Manual (2016), which was created by the FIAF Cataloguing and Documentation Commission and the FIAF Cataloguing Rules Revision Working Group, and published in PDF and hard copy. The guidelines correspond closely with the EN 15907 structure and use associated terminology. Given this, the Manual serves as an important extension of EN 15907 by helping professionals create cataloguing or metadata records that will meet requirements of new database implementations and/or the adoption of new metadata standards.

With Linked Data concepts becoming more mature, new ways of storing and sharing data in film archives open up. Major aggregating initiatives, such as the European Film Gateway and Europeana are also undergoing rapid technological change, and strive for more effective ways to achieve semantic interoperability in the cultural heritage sector. At the same time, many film heritage institutions encounter technical and organizational challenges in adopting Linked Data concepts. The workshop will present the latest approaches and best practices concerning these concepts, and facilitate an open discussion on Linked Data in film archives.

9 November 2016 – In 2012, the Orphan Works Directive has been adopted with the aim to unlock hundreds of thousands of objects preserved in Europe’s libraries, museums, archives and cinematheques, to digitse and publish them on portals like the European Film Gateway or Europeana. How has this objective been put into practise? The conference, jointly organised by FORWARD coordinator CINEMATEK and the Royal Library of Belgium, brings together professionals from the library and the audiovisual sector, policy makers and Commission’s representatives to discuss the impact of the Directive and how it has been transposed into national law.

In the afternoon, participants are invited to discover new orphan works tools: the FORWARD system to support the rights status assessment of audiovisual works, and the Royal Library’s orphan works database.

Venue: Royal Library of BelgiumDate: 30th of November 2016, 9.30 – 16.30 h

You can access the programme and the registration form on the FORWARD website: http://tinyurl.com/z7oavr6Registration is free of charge, but upon inscription. Please register before 25th of November.